The Bible IS NOT Hard to Understand
I always chuckle when someone suggests the Bible is difficult to understand and left to private interpretation. No doubt, unraveling the meaning of certain Old Testament prophets, or deciphering the precise identity of the "man of sin" in 2 Thess. 2:3f is difficult for the most astute among us. There is no universal agreement on many such interpretations.Having said that, there are foundational themes in the Scriptures that are uncomplicated and accessible. These fundamental streams run throughout Old and New Testaments, and form the basis for which the more complicated matters arise.
For example, decrypting the Biblical code in order to identify Paul's Man of Sin is premised upon the necessity for the rise of such an evil one. The Son of Perdition plays a role in an apocalyptic scenario that transpires because of Israel's disobedience to the laws of God. We miss this point, and the evidence is apparent in the abundance of Christian books on end-time prophecy as compared to the handful of studies on Biblical law.
However, the difficulty Christian scholars have in identifying the Man of Sin, or the Whore of Babylon, does not mean the entirety of the Biblical text is equally ambiguous. The Book of Daniel, the Old Testament version of the Book of Revelation, is replete with symbolism and dark speech regarding "times and seasons" of the End, e.g. Seventy Weeks (9:24). Yet, before Daniel's interaction with the angel, he made clear the unambiguous frame of reference that marks the comprehensive meaning of Scripture -- ethics:
As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us: yet made we not our prayer before the LORD our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand thy truth. Therefore hath the LORD watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us: for the LORD our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth: for we obeyed not his voice. Daniel 9:13-14This passage is clear as it gets. Writing some 1500 years after Moses, the prophet Daniel places the contemporary crisis of God's people squarely on the violation of what is "written in the law of Moses." It's Israel's disobedience that explains "all this evil" that is "come upon us." We can debate the meaning of the Seventy Weeks, but we cannot debate the reason for the time of judgment.
This ambiguity surrounding much of apocalyptic literature leads to a gross neglect of the fundamental basis of God's law and His historical response to our adherence. This is for two reasons: 1) it's a convenient excuse for those running from accountability, and 2) scholars make the more difficult portions of Scripture the primary subjects of study. Just think: where would be today if Rushdoony had not written The Institutes of Biblical Law? God forbid if he had wasted his time with such pulp fiction as The Late Great Planet Earth.
The Bible is concerned with ethics, but man runs after politics. The Scriptures make incessant appeals for obedience, but man responds more to economic concerns. There are a myriad of items that man uses to overlay the Biblical admonishment to obedience; and when he does finally examine the text, he devotes himself to matching the Number of the Beast with the numerical equivalent of a politician's name. His concern is not responsibility. He wants sensationalism. Like the Greeks of Acts 17, today's Christian concerns himself with new, tantalizing information to satisfy his curiosity and excuse him from faithfulness.
